


Oh, My Love, How My Heart Bleeds For You

by roman_numeral



Series: The Old Ones [2]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Established Relationship, M/M, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:06:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25795594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roman_numeral/pseuds/roman_numeral
Summary: Yusuf looses his immortality, Nicky freaks out.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: The Old Ones [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1871323
Comments: 4
Kudos: 94





	Oh, My Love, How My Heart Bleeds For You

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of The Old Ones series, if you haven't read it it's okay, I think you can still enjoy this short fic.
> 
> (SPOILER ALERT for The Old Ones) All you need to know is that reincarnation is a thing, Andy is dead, Quynh and Booker are part of the team (yay), and Ra is Nicky's ex but he's dead so he doesn't matter. 
> 
> I honestly debated if I should make this fic part of the series or not, because I could have easily not done that but then I shrugged and said why not. We'll see where else this series goes. 
> 
> Hopefully you enjoy this fic, if you do please leave a like/kudos :) :) and comments are always appreciated. 
> 
> A warning, I have no beta so all errors are mine and hopefully they don't detract to much .

  


Yusuf is reading a poetry book when he gets a papercut. It’s deep and it draws blood and he hisses in pain. He sticks his finger in his mouth waiting for the blood to stop. But it doesn’t. Hesitantly he swallows the blood gathered in his mouth and he pulls his finger out. He stares at it.

Deep, red blood gathers in the cut and slowly oozes out. Yusuf is frozen, his heartbeat slowly starts to rise. Thud, thud, thud, thudthudthudthud.

The door slams close and he jumps up in surprise. It’s Nicky. Beautiful Nicky with sun highlighted hair and bright speckled eyes. The smile slowly slips from his lips as he sees the blood sliding down Joe’s index finger.

“Joe?”

Joe quickly gets a cloth and wraps it around his injured finger because it’s one thing for him to panic but Nicky, he doesn’t want Nicky to lose it.

Slowly, as if afraid, Nicky walks up to Joe. “Let me see.” He says as he begins to tug at the cloth.

“It’s fine, I’m fine,” Joe argues and pulls back.

But Nicky won’t be dissuaded, and they keep pulling one way and the other and Joe knows it’s stupid. Nicky already saw, he just needs confirmation. So he stops fighting and lets him see.

Although the cut isn’t bleeding too badly, it definitely isn’t healing either.

“Oh my god,” Nicky says it like a prayer. “No, please, no.” Tears gather is his green eyes as they lose all hope.

“Nicky, love, it’s going to be okay.”

But Nicky won’t listen to him. Blinded by desperation, he opens a drawer and takes out a sharp knife and cuts his forearm. It heals instantly. He cuts himself again, this time deeper and longer. Again, it heals.

“Nicolo, stop it. Nicolo!” Joe demands but Nicky won’t stop. He keeps hurting himself over and over and over again expecting and hoping he’ll stop healing.

“Nicolo!” Yusuf grabs his wrist to stop him from making yet another cut.

They wrestle for the knife, it’s awkward because neither one wants to hurt the other. Realizing he could seriously hurt Yusuf, Nicky stops and lets him take the knife away.

“It’s going to be okay.” Yusuf tries again.

“How can you say that! Because NO! NO! It’s NOT going to be okay!” His words are strong and fearful and full of anger as tears fall down his cheeks. “You’re going… you’re going to leave me,” he can’t say it, that ugly word. That word that for so long meant nothing to them. That ugly word that took Andy and now it’s threatening to take Yusuf. 

“Nicolo,” Joe tries to get closer to him, but Nicky backs away.

“Leave me alone,” he says before he leaves out the door.

Joe thinks about going after him but decides against it. Nicky needs some time alone to think and sort out his feelings. He throws away the rag and washes his hands and goes into Andy’s empty room to find a band aid.

“What was that all about,” Nile asks as she munches on some cookies made by Quynh.

All Joe does is lift his hand to show her the band aid.

All of Nile’s good humor evaporates.

“Oh, Joe.”

“Please don’t freak out, I don’t think I can handle it.”

Nile nods. “What did Nicky say?”

Joe shakes his head. “He freaked out. I have never seen him so freaked out in my life, not since the crusades. He yelled that I was going to abandon him.”

“Oh Joe,” is apparently the only thing Nile can say.

Nicky doesn’t come back at night. He’s not there in the morning and Joe is starting to think Nicky did something extremely drastic to himself. Joe, Nile, Quynh, and Booker decide to go looking for him.

London is a big city so they take separate ways.

Joe goes to the harbor, Nile and Quynh take to the subway tunnels. They have Copley contact the police to keep an eye out on Nicky. 

Booker doesn’t go far. Knowing intimately what deep grief does to a person he checks out the bars. He goes to the one closest to their apartment first and doesn’t find him. Slowly he makes his way further and further from their current home, checking every bar as he goes.

“Have you seen this man?” He shows the bartender a picture of Nicky.

The man only points deeper into the bar.

“Thanks,” Booker says before going in.

The bar is dark and gloomy, perfect for keeping one’s depression intact. Booker is thankful he’s past this. Past the need to drink to make himself numb, to keep on withstanding immortality. Thankful that the smell of alcohol doesn’t have him yearning for it.

He finds Nicky passed out in a booth. It’s sad to see the normally calm Nicky completely loose it, but Booker doesn’t judge, on the contrary his heart hurts for him.

“Hey,” he kneels in front of Nicky. “Hey, come on, we gotta go, everyone’s worried for you.”

Nicky doesn’t move at all.

Booker sighs, he goes to the bartender, pays Nicky’s tab, and then calls a taxi. He doesn’t have to wait long.

With the bartender’s help he gets Nicky in the taxi, he leaves the man a generous tip for his help.

On the way back home, he tries to wake up Nicky, because there’s no way he’s going to carry the man up those stairs. First, he calls his name and shakes him and when that doesn’t work, he decides some slapping is in order. He doesn’t slap him too hard just some weighted pats on his cheeks.

“Wha,,,” Nicky grumbles.

“Wake up sleeping beauty,” Booker says loudly.

Nicky tries to cover his ear.

“No, you gotta wake up. I’m not carrying your heave ass up those stairs.”

“Then don’t.” Is all Nicky says before he tries to make himself comfortable in the taxi and go back to sleep.

Of course, Booker doesn’t let him. He asks the man to turn the radio on to the most obnoxious music and play it loudly.

“Aaaaagh,” Nicky screams in frustration.

With a grumbling and swaying Nicky on his feet they slowly make their way up the stairs and into their apartment.

Booker sits Nicky down in the kitchen. He makes a strong black coffee.

“Drink it,” he says.

Nicky just stares at it.

Booker sighs as he sits next to him. “Death-“

“Don’t.” Nicky says it with such venom in his voice, he actually scares Booker.

“It sucks,” Booker continues. “You’re talking to the man who lost his wife and his children and had to keep on living. No one understands what you’re going through better than me.”

“I’ve been with Yusuf for 900 years, I don’t think I can live without him.”

“You’re going to have to. Doesn’t matter whether you want to or not.”

“You have such a sweet way with words,” Nicky says with no humor in is voice.

“I’m not Yusuf, but I am your friend. And I’m just telling you the truth.” Booker takes a deep breath and goes for it. “You’re going to be a widower Nicky, and who knows for how long. Maybe for a few years, maybe a hundred, maybe thousands. But right now, that doesn’t matter. What matters _right now_ , the only thing that should be going through your head is that Joe is alive in this moment. That he’s still here and that he loves you and that _right now_ he’s worried for you. What matters _right now_ is what you do with the time you have left with him. Nicky, you’re too smart to let grief overtake you. Joe is a man who would do anything for you. Don’t, don’t ruin this for him and for yourself, you’ll regret that more than anything else in your long life.”

“I, I wish Ra were alive,” Nicky hates himself for saying it, but he can’t help himself.

“Why would you say that?” Booker asks in disbelief.

“He knew how to bring back immortality. He could’ve saved Joe.”

Booker halfway rolls his eyes and leans back on the chair. “I know it’s the grief talking but even if Ra were alive, he most certainly wouldn’t do anything to help Joe, no matter what you said to him. And even if he did, you wouldn’t be able to enjoy your time with him. He’d be immortal but away from you, probably still in some jail cell, wishing he weren’t immortal.”

“But he’d be alive,” Nicky insists in a small voice.

“Do you think Joe wants to be alive and far away from you? I don’t. I think if he had just one year left to live, just one, he wouldn’t mind as long as he spends every single second of it with you. Wouldn’t you want the same if you were mortal?”

With pain on his face and resignation, because Booker’s words make perfect sense, Nicky nods. “How badly did I scare him?” He asks after a while.

“Pretty badly, he thought you’d do something really foolish to find a way to end your life.”

“I’m an idiot.”

“No, you’re just… a man full of grief. Trust me I know.”

“Thank you, Booker. For, for everything.”

“Anytime, but don’t make a habit of it.” Nicky only give him a weak smile. “You should take a shower. I called them right when we got here, so they’ll be here soon.”

Nicky nods and slowly makes his way to his room.

Joe’s waiting for him when he gets out, dripping wet and with a towel around his waist. Joe doesn’t care. He gets up and wraps his arms around the love of his life.

“I’m okay, I’m alright. I’m sorry I scared you, I’m sorry I acted the way I did.”

Joe’s only response is to kiss him over and over again.

After Nicky gets dressed and he’s combed his hair, they sit on the bed.

“Booker told me he found you at a bar.”

“Yeah, I just wanted to drown my grief, to forget…”

“Everything will be alright,” Joe starts but Nicky quickly shushes him.

“Nothing will be alright. But I will endure.” Against his will tears gather in his eyes. “I can’t really think about the future right now. All I know is that I want my life with you to be the best it possibly can. I want to hold you as much as I can. I want to wake up every morning with your arms around me. I want us to get married and settle like we always talk about. I don’t…I don’t ever want to see blood on you, I don’t ever want to dig a bullet out of you, or stitch a wound, or worry about you dying before your time,” the tears begin falling down. “I wont be able to deal with that Yusuf, I wont.”

Joe gathers Nicky in his arms and Nicky sobs into the side of his neck. “Whatever you want my love, whatever you want.”

They sleep that night holding on to each other tighter than ever before.

Nicky dreams that night of meeting Yusuf for the very first time in Egypt. He dreams of dying in Yusuf’s arms. And he dreams of meeting Yusuf again, on opposite sides of the battlefield.

When he wakes up early in the morning, Yusuf is already awake and running his hands through Nicky’s long hair.

“You okay,” he asks.

Nicky nods. “Yeah. I’m okay.”

Yusuf dies 60 years later an old, gray haired man who’s lived an incredible life, who’s seen empires rise and fall, who’s saves hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions of lives, and who has loved and been loved more fiercely than anyone could possible know or understand.

On his death bed, he holds on to Nicky’s hand and says with complete certainty, “We’ll see each other again.”

Holding back tears Nicky nods and says, “I know.”

And somewhere in Italy, close to a small cottage, another stone angel is erected.

  



End file.
